UAH (1-1-1, 1-0-0 CHS) vs. Middle Tennessee (1-3-0, 1-1-0 CHS)
When: Friday, 8:45 p.m.; Saturday, 8:45 p.m.
Where: Ford Ice Center, Antioch, Tenn. (Map)
Watch: Penalty Box Radio (Facebook)
The UAH club hockey team heads up I-65 for the first road trip of the season this weekend against Middle Tennessee State.
The Chargers are fresh off their first win of the season, a 4-3 overtime victory at home against Tennessee to start College Hockey South play last Friday.
“Very proud of how this team battled throughout the game and found a way to get a win against a very good team,” UAH head coach Tim Flynn said. “I know it’s early in the season but these are two big points in the division that help us when it comes to the playoff race. We haven’t had a good first period yet this year, so that’s something we need to clean up.”
While Kolton Watts (3g-2a-5p), Keaton Watts (2g-2a-4p), and Henry Hoff (2g-3a-5p) have been powering the offense, it’s been goaltender Cameron Crawford busy keeping the Chargers in games. In two starts so far this season, Crawford has 113 saves, posting a .929 save percentage.
“Cameron Crawford kept us in it and let us get our legs under us, but that’s not going to be sustainable,” Flynn said. “We’ve talked about learning how to win, and I think we took a big step forward in that department. We were able to bend and not break defensively, again a lot of that credit goes to Crawford. We also had a few situations where, in the past, I feel like we would have taken penalties and negated an advantage but we kept our cool and were able to capitalize on our power play chances which ultimately was a deciding factor in getting us the win.”
Middle Tennessee split its first CHS series last weekend against fellow Nashville metro club Vanderbilt. The Blue Raiders lost the first game 5-1 before taking the second 6-3.
Donovan Yesnach has four goals and six points in four games to lead MTSU.
“We need to have a good start, that’s just something we need to figure out,” Flynn said. “MTSU is a team that is going to work hard for 60 minutes and I expect them to come out fast, and we need to be ready to match that intensity. They have good depth, and are very hard to play against. I mean that in the best way possible.”
The two teams split a pair of one-goal games in Huntsville last season, with UAH winning 5-4 and MTSU winning 9-8.
“There are no easy shifts against MTSU. We had two great back and forth games with them last year, and I expect two more this weekend,” Flynn said. “I’m excited to see how our guys handle the environment on the road. Again, these are four very important intra-division points, so we need to be focused and focus on winning shift to shift.”
| CHS Division 2 North | Pts | Record | OTL | Overall |
| UAH | 2 | 1-0-0 | 0 | 1-1-1 |
| Ole Miss | 2 | 1-1-0 | 0 | 3-1-0 |
| Vanderbilt | 2 | 1-1-0 | 0 | 1-4-0 |
| Middle Tennessee | 2 | 1-1-0 | 0 | 1-3-0 |
| Georgia Tech | 2 | 1-1-0 | 0 | 1-2-0 |
| Tennessee | 1 | 0-1-0 | 1 | 0-3-0 |
| Clemson | 0 | 0-0-0 | 0 | 2-1-0 |